EARLY YEARS PUPIL PREMIUM

From April 2015, nurseries, schools, childminders and other childcare providers will be able to claim extra funding through the Early Years Pupil Premium to support children’s development, learning and care. We hope the information below will help explain what the Early Years Pupil Premium is and who is eligible for this funding. Importantly, if you are eligible for this funding, we ask you to fill out the application form (link below) so that we, as a provider, can claim the extra funding.

National data and research shows that children of families who meet the Early Years Pupil Premium criteria may need additional help to get the most from their Early Years Education. As with the Pupil Premium available for Hampshire schools for children in Reception up to Year 11, the Early Years Pupil Premium will provide Hampshire early years education approved nurseries, pre-schools and childminders with extra funding to support children in achieving the best early years outcomes and start they can.

The Early Years Pupil Premium provides an extra 68 pence  per hour for three and four year old children whose parents are in receipt of certain benefits or who were formerly in local authority care but who left care because they were adopted or were subject to a special guardianship or child arrangements order.

This means an extra £302 a year for each child taking up the full 570 hours funded entitlement to early years education. This additional money could make a significant difference to us.

We can use the extra funding in any way to improve the quality of the early years education that we provide for your child. This could include, for example, additional training for our staff on early language, investing in partnership working with our colleagues in the area to further our expertise, or supporting our staff in working on specialised areas such as speech and language.

It is well documented that high quality early years education can influence how well a child does at both primary and secondary school and so we want to make the most of this additional funding. If you have older children, you may be aware that a Pupil Premium has been available for school age children and it has proved to have given a real boost to the children receiving the funding. We want to do the same for our early years children entitled to this funding.

Therefore, if your family meet the criteria that are detailed on the form, we ask that you fill it in and return it to us. This will allow us to claim the additional Early Years Pupil Premium funding.

APPLICATION FORM

The information that you provide will be covered by our data protection policy and the Hampshire County Council privacy notice.